child of war, lend a mending hand
by Laura of Maychoria
Summary: Drake has been missing for three days. Damian isn't worried. But he's still going to help rescue him when they get a lead, of course.


**A/N:** I wanted more practice with Tim and Damian bonding before writing the next chapter of Year of Fallen Angels, so I expanded the latest prompt I wrote from tumblr into a full fic.

Title from Wolf by First Aid Kit, which I've been listening to on repeat while thinking about Damian.

* * *

"Batman, there's a guard on the back door," Robin reported. His voice was a hiss, his glove creaking as his fist clenched. This was proof that the warehouse wasn't abandoned after all.

"Acknowledged," Batman responded, voice even grimmer than usual. "We're moving in. Keep an eye out for Red Robin."

"Copy that."

Drake had been missing for three days. When he missed checking in the first day, no one thought much of it. Drake often got caught up in his work post-patrol and fell asleep before making a report, verbally or electronically. He would catch up the next day, sometimes with an apology, sometimes without. Father and Pennyworth scolded him, but that didn't stop it from happening again.

When he didn't check in the second evening, though, and hadn't sent any reports about the first night either, an alarm was raised. Father contacted Wayne Enterprises and found that he hadn't been at work, either. Oracle began searching all of the video feeds and reaching out to their network of contacts. Father's teeth gritted, his eyes narrowed, and every movement was sharp and focused. Damian was sure that Drake would not remain missing for long.

On the third day, Grayson came back from Bludhaven to help with the search. The Birds of Prey dropped the case they'd been working on to assist. Even Red Hood was called upon, and even worse, he responded.

Damian wasn't worried, though. Of course not. Drake was too annoying to die. He'd probably just fallen asleep in a subway tunnel or something, and his persistent exhaustion was such that he had yet to wake up. Yes, that was a reasonable explanation.

But when Oracle came through with a lead, Damian moved in with everyone else. She sent them to a warehouse, abandoned since the quake years ago, with known ties to Two-Face and his gang. Drake had made a note on his personal computer about checking old known villain hideouts for boobytraps and caches, and it had taken this long for Oracle to break his encryption. The area was so out of the way and abandoned that there weren't any working video feeds.

Nightwing and Batman took the front entrance, Red Hood went in the skylight, and Robin found a back entrance with a single guard. He reported the presence of the guard, and Batman responded. In moments, Robin could hear fighting over the comm.

He took out the guard with a batarang and secured his wrists, then picked the lock and slipped inside. He heard the fighting more clearly now, echoing through the dusty halls and rusted vents. Only a few lightbulbs were lit in the back hallways he traveled through. He stuck to the shadows, his head swiveling back and forth as he watched for enemies.

It didn't take him long to find another guarded door, this one with two men. They were tense, guns out and ready in their hands, but their attention was aimed away from Robin. The sounds of Batman, Nightwing, and Red Hood fighting the rest of the gang was acting as a good distraction.

Robin swung up to the pipes on the ceiling with careful stealth, carried himself a few feet closer hand-over-hand, then dropped on them from above. A couple of kicks disabled their gun-carrying hands, causing the guns to skitter off into the shadows, and blows to the temple took the guards down the rest of the way. They tried to fight him, but their blows were uncoordinated, and he dodged without much difficulty.

Robin secured these guards, too, with zip ties around their wrists and knees, then turned to the door. Whatever they were guarding must be important to warrant two guards. Could be Drake, could be goods or valuables, even Two-Face himself. The door was both locked and barred, made of thick metal with no window or any other features. Robin removed the bar and made short work of the padlock and chain with his lockpicks, then stepped inside.

"Red Robin? Are you here?"

The room was dark, and his feet shuffled through a layer of dirt and dust on the floor. There was a dank smell, unpleasant and pervasive. Mildew, rot, broken wood, concrete dust…vomit.

Now that the sounds of fighting were muffled, Robin could hear breathing in the room with him. It was harsh and low, but Robin was about eighty percent sure that he recognized it.

He couldn't help gloating, just a little. "I knew I'd be the first to find you, Red Robin. What's wrong, couldn't rescue yourself? I thought even you would be able to overcome such pathetic thugs, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that your skills were not up to the challenge."

Drake coughed, the sound broken and choked. "Da—Robin, please… Shut up."

The words were barely audible, as if forced out through a stranglehold. Damian frowned. He looked around for a lightswitch or pull string, but when he found a switch, nothing happened. He flipped his lenses to night vision instead.

Drake was sitting in the far corner of the room, propped against both walls. His hands and feet were both bound with thick chains, and he was badly beaten, his suit torn in places, head drooping. His cowl had been removed, and his dirty hair hung around his face in messy strings. More worrying, now that Damian was paying attention, was the way he was breathing. It sounded like something was wrong with his lungs.

Damian closed his lips and moved forward. He had to maneuver around several broken crates and a puddle of sickness on the floor, his nose wrinkling up. He knelt by Drake's side, ignoring his start of surprise at the sudden closeness, and started working on removing the restraints from his arms.

"Report on your condition," Robin said grimly.

Red Robin sighed, but it cut off in the middle, interrupted by a coughing fit. He leaned away from Robin, trying to muffle himself on his shoulder and not spray him with germs. His body seemed to spasm in the throes of it, and Robin had to back off until it stopped.

Drake finally finished coughing and slumped against the wall with something close to a sob. "I need to get out of here. I can't breathe."

"I'm working on it," Damian said, turning back to the cuffs. His voice was surprisingly gentle to his own ears. "Are you sick?"

Stupid question. The answer was obviously yes.

Drake laughed almost soundlessly, trying not to let his chest move. He held his hands as still as he could for Damian to work on. "It was…was just a minor head cold three days ago. Prob'ly pneumonia now."

"You should have stayed in if you had a cold, you idiot. The rest of us can take care of Gotham without you."

"Probably." Drake didn't even sound irritated by the insult, just tired. It was almost as worrying as his labored breathing. "I honestly thought this place was abandoned, though. It was just gonna…just gonna be a routine check. You know Joker left behind…an armed nuke in one of his old hideouts?" He had to keep pausing for breath.

Damian frowned and worked harder. For some reason this lock was much more tricky than the two doors he had just picked. Maybe because Drake was trembling. Or maybe that was him. "Stop talking. You'll make your lungs worse."

"Don't think that's…possible."

But Drake fell silent, letting him work. The lock finally opened with a muffled clink, and Damian pulled the chains away, unwrapping them from his brother's arms. Drake flexed his hands to encourage circulation.

Damian turned to the chains on his feet. The sounds in the rest of the warehouse had ceased, so he activated his comm now that he wouldn't distract the others in a crucial moment. "Batman, Nightwing, I've found Red Robin. Requesting transport. I don't think he should walk, and I can't carry him on my own."

"I can walk," Drake protested.

Batman was already answering, his voice sharp with worry. "Is he injured?"

"Ill. Possibly pneumonia. His respiration is labored and uneven."

"On our way."

Damian finished the other lock and pulled those chains away, too. Drake's trembling seemed even more pronounced, perhaps a reaction to finally being rescued after days of lonely vigilance, enduring both mistreatment from enemies and the betrayal of his own body. As soon as he was free, he tried to push himself to his feet, shoving along the wall. As Damian expected, though, his knees buckled immediately.

Damian shoved in closer with a growl and got his shoulder under Drake's armpit, pulling his hand around his neck. "Lean on me. We can get out in the hall, but then we're waiting for assistance. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, okay," Drake said faintly. He leaned on Damian and let him lead the way, weaving around the crates, the puddle of vomit.

In the hallway, Drake did not object to being lowered down to sit against the wall. His eyes were dilated in the dim light, mouth open as he panted. When Damian switched his lenses to normal mode, he could see how pale and clammy his skin was, translucent where it wasn't bruised.

His breathing did seem slightly easier, though, away from the awful smell of that tight little room. Damian considered, then chose to sit next to him against the wall while they waited. Drake shivered, then leaned against him. "Thanks," he whispered.

"You're welcome," Damian said stiffly. He did not point out, again, how pathetic Drake was to have needed rescue, and how stupid he was not to have taken care of himself, for allowing his illness to progress to this point. It was as close as he could get to being kind and comforting.

If he was Grayson, he would say something else. "You'll be okay," maybe. Or, "I will always come for you, of course." He'd call Drake by a pet name and make him feel comfortable and safe and loved.

But all Damian could do was sit there. All he could do was remain strong as Drake leaned against him and not tilt away.

"Father's coming," he said. People were coming who would be better at offering comfort. Drake just had to wait.

Drake slumped down even further and nodded limply on his shoulder, which was not an entirely unpleasant sensation.

It could have been worse. Drake could have been more gravely injured, could have been delirious with fever or suffering from torture. He was ill, but he would recover.

Drake sucked in a breath, shallow and phlegmy. "Thanks for...not making fun of me," he murmured. "At least...not after the first time. 'Preciate it. I know B is gonna yell at me for like...an hour...but it's nice of you not to start it off."

Damian blinked rapidly, unsure how to respond. The fever must be worse than he thought. He and Drake did not draw attention to the verbal fisticuffs they engaged in. If one of them chose to let it lapse, the other said nothing. Even the slightest word on the subject was likely to result in a resumption of hostilities.

Drake must be very out of it to make such a mistake now. Or perhaps his three-day captivity had left him fragile enough to express gratitude when he ought to be silent. Either way, it was a worrying sign.

Drake was starting to slide down against Damian's shoulder, too weak to hold himself up. Damian growled and wrapped an arm around his shoulder to halt his descent. "Be silent, Red Robin," he admonished, though his voice was admittedly not as harsh as he'd intended it to be. "Help is coming. Hold yourself together until then."

Drake murmured against shoulder, then went still. Damian held him tighter and waited.

X

Batman strode down the hall toward the back of the warehouse, Nightwing beside him. Red Hood had already cleared out once the violence had ended, though not without expressing his relief that Red Robin had been found, in his gruff way. Batman hadn't been aware that the relations between his two middle sons had improved so much, but he wasn't complaining.

Robin had sent a ping to the GPS on the computer in his gauntlet, and he was following that now to make a beeline to his youngest. He found himself speeding up without making a conscious decision. He didn't make himself slow down.

Around another corner, and there they were, sitting against a wall not far from an open door with a chain and a bar loose on the floor. On the opposite side of the door were two guards just starting to stir to consciousness. They were adequately bound, so Batman spared them only a glance before turning to his boys. His Robins, literally and figuratively.

Damian looked unharmed, though a bit more grim than usual. He had an arm firmly wrapped around Tim, who was slumping against him. Tim, not unexpectedly, looked awful. His cowl, gauntlets, and boots were all gone. His suit was torn, showing bruises and scrapes on fair skin, and his face bore the marks of a beating, as well, partly obscured by the strings of his greasy hair.

Bruce swiftly went to a knee beside them, reaching a hand for Tim's wrist. He grit his teeth at the red mark around the kid's wrist where he'd been cruelly restrained. He had to search for an unharmed portion of skin to take his pulse. Tim rolled his head on Damian's shoulder, eyes fluttering. As Damian had reported, his breathing was so bad that it hurt to listen to.

"B? 'Zat you?"

"It's me. I'm here." Bruce reached out his free hand to card through his hair. "They unmasked you." He didn't mean it as a criticism, just an observation, but he still caught the way Tim winced in shame.

Tim blinked sluggishly and did his best to make a report. "They didn't...didn't recognize me. Out of towners. Colombian maybe? Drug trade. They're not Two-Face's people, I picked up that much. Just bad luck they picked his old hideout to take up in. Plus I think...my face was swollen enough by the time they...ripped off the cowl for me to be pretty unrecognizable."

Bruce grunted almost unintelligibly, caught between being relieved and horrified. He definitely didn't like the way Tim kept pausing for breath. His voice was rough and shaky, even worse than Bruce had expected on seeing his condition.

"I've already called the Batmobile. Nightwing is contacting the police. We'll get you back to Agent A."

Tim hummed wearily, going boneless. Bruce read the marks of captivity on him without difficulty, numerous as they were, not least the way he finally relaxed that last little inch at the promise of going home. He scooped the boy into his arms and started to rise, barely pausing when there was a slight snag.

He looked down, searching for the snag before he tried to walk away. Oh. Tim's hand had slipped into Damian's, holding tight. Or maybe Damian had grabbed Tim's hand. Either way, the two boys were tethered now, Tim's arm dangling outside of Bruce's grip, Damian reaching up to meet him like a toddler with an adult.

Neither were looking at each other. Damian, instead, looked at Bruce, his small face set and hard. "Father, we must go. Red Robin requires medical attention."

Bruce nodded, mystified but not unhappy with this development. Ahead of them in the hall, Nightwing was looking back at them with a sweet, uncertain smile. He opened the doors on the way out to the car, leading the way, while Bruce carried Tim and Damian held Tim's hand.

This status quo held all the way back to the Cave. The boys refused to be separated. Tim fell asleep on the road, or perhaps passed out, but even then Damian did not release his hand. Tim woke again when Bruce set him down on an exam table in the medbay, and his first action, still half-asleep, was to tighten his grip on Damian's hand.

Neither said anything about it. They still didn't look at each other. Bruce didn't know what to make of it.

The exam was brief. Alfred made a tentative determination that Tim did not have pneumonia, just a very bad cold, but they would have to have Dr. Thompkins come tomorrow to give a second opinion. Tim was greatly rundown by fatigue and three days without food and water, not to mention the stress of being beaten and held captive with no idea of when rescue was coming, if it was coming at all. Once those factors were remedied, the sickness and fever would probably improve as well.

Tim and Damian briefly stopped holding hands so Tim could get a shower. Dick went with him to the communal showers in case he needed help, and Bruce and Damian made up a bed for Tim while Alfred cleaned up the exam area. The rest of them changed into civilian clothes, too, and Alfred brought a tray for Tim. Soon enough Tim was bundled up in a medical bed, an IV drip helping replace his fluids while he drank a mug of Alfred's best chicken soup. Bruce sat on one side of the bed, and on the other was Damian, once again holding his hand.

When the mug was almost empty, Bruce sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Tim, can you tell me what happened?"

He did his best to keep his voice neutral, but he still caught Tim's minute flinch. He was expecting to be berated for being captured and unable to rescue himself. Bruce wasn't sure why their exchanges always boiled down to that these days. He tried to make conversation, asked Tim for information, even something as simple as how his day had gone, and Tim tensed up and got that wary look on his face, waiting Bruce to bring the hammer down on him.

Worse, Tim was right. No matter how carefully Bruce tried to approach him, how much he just wanted to show that he wanted him to be well and do well, somehow he always ended up criticizing something. How Tim had been handling his cases, or his performance in a fight Bruce had witnessed, or something personal like how Tim wasn't coming back to the manor often enough, wasn't getting medical check-ups and taking care of himself, was drinking too much coffee at work or not eating enough vegetables at home. There was always something.

Bruce truly, honestly did not mean to keep driving Tim away. He just cared about him, too much maybe, and somehow that always came out of his mouth like an admonishment. He couldn't seem to break the cycle, but he wanted to try. He was going to keep trying until he got it right.

Tim set his mug down on the rolling table, then buried his hand in the blankets. Bruce did not miss the way his fingers were trembling. Tim's other hand tightened around Damian's, though he didn't look at him. His eyes were fixed on Bruce, his face carefully blank.

"I wasn't feeling 100%, so I knew I shouldn't take a full patrol. I didn't want to be a liability, didn't want to make anything worse. So I decided to make it a short night and then go to bed. There was a warehouse I'd been meaning to check out for months, an old hideout used by Two-Face and his gang. I had checked it a couple of weeks ago, and it was thoroughly abandoned then, but I didn't do a full sweep."

Tim's breathing was still a little crackly, his voice low and hoarse, but he was able to speak for longer periods without stopping for breath. The food, water, and comfort already seemed to be doing wonders for him, though his face was still too pale, a flush of fever high on his cheeks. Bruce nodded gently for him to go on.

Tim's free hand clenched in the blankets. "So when I, I went to check it out three days ago, I didn't do my due diligence." He looked away, ashamed, then back to Bruce. "I didn't look for guards. I didn't notice the new vehicles parked out front. I just went in the skylight, intending to have a quick look around and then go home."

"Okay," Bruce said calmly. "You were sick, and you got a little sloppy. What happened next?"

Damian gave him a sharp look. Bruce didn't look at him, keeping his eyes on Tim.

"I dunno for sure." Tim shrugged. He was trying for insolence and nonchalance, but it came out tense and unhappy instead. "I might have passed out a little. I think I got ambushed, or they just snuck up behind me, I'm not sure. I was…" He looked down at his lap, then up at Bruce. "I shouldn't have been out. I should have just gone home instead of trying to do anything at all. I know I screwed up. Please, if you're gonna yell at me, can you wait until my headache is a little better? I just… My head really, really hurts, Bruce."

His lip was trembling, and tears shone in his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce could see Damian glaring at him. It was...a lot like the way Dick would be looking at him right now, if he hadn't gone to help Alfred with something. Damian really was learning a lot from his oldest brother.

Bruce sighed, his shoulders slumping. He felt horribly, ridiculously old. "I'm not going to yell at you, Tim." He let a little of his own misery show in his voice. "Yes, you shouldn't have been out while you were sick, but I understand why you push yourself. I understand why you feel like you have to do everything alone, though I really, really wish you didn't. Just...next time you get the urge to do something like this, could you please take some back-up? Please. It would make me feel...so much better."

Tim looked...utterly shocked, and that hurt, too. "You're really not gonna yell at me?"

Bruce shook his head and tried to smile. "I'm not going to yell at you. If I did, I think Damian would bite my head off." He tried to make it sound like a joke, though he still wasn't sure if it was even permissible to mention this new development between his youngest sons.

Tim shot a quick glance at Damian, as if afraid that looking at him too long would set him off like a bomb, then looked back to Bruce. He let his head rest back against the pillow, dark hair trailing over the white and setting off the blue of his eyes. He didn't seem to know how to act, either. He'd gotten used to the horrible little routine he and Bruce had fallen into, and now he was cut loose, without a script.

Bruce closed his eyes briefly, then reached out and cupped his hand around the side of Tim's head. He brushed his thumb under his eye, wiping away the moisture there, being gentle of the new bruises. "We'll talk more later. Just...get some sleep, son. Can you do that for me?"

Tim swallowed with difficulty, then nodded against Bruce's hand, slow and soft. Bruce kept caressing his cheek with his thumb while Tim's eyes drifted slowly shut, his body relaxing back into the bed. Slowly, his breath evened and deepened, and his grip on Damian's hand slackened.

Bruce waited until he was sure he was asleep, then carefully sat back in his chair. He pushed himself to his feet, groaning slightly at the new aches in his knee, his lower back, and pulled the blankets up to Tim's shoulders. He looked at Damian, who appeared to be more relaxed now, watching Bruce without hostility.

Bruce mustered a smile. "I take it that you want first watch with Tim tonight."

Damian nodded solemnly. "Drake clearly needs to be watched much more carefully from now on."

Bruce chuckled. "Astutely stated, as usual." He circled around the bed and laid a kiss on the top of Damian's head, then made his way to the door.

He turned back before leaving to look over his youngest sons. He did his best to memorize the sight, his heart feeling much lighter now than it had in weeks, or possibly months. "Dick or Alfred or I will come relieve you in a few hours. Assuming that you'll trust us to take the proper care with your charge?"

Damian gave him a narrow look, carefully evaluating. "I suppose I might be persuaded. You did well with him just now." He sounded grudging, as if he had expected to give Bruce a much worse report.

"Thank you, son. I appreciate your assessment. And I deeply appreciate your interest in Tim's well-being."

Damian sniffed, and Bruce took his leave. Best not to draw too much attention to it, or Damian might find a reason to stop.

Then again, maybe he wouldn't. Since Damian had rescued Tim, he seemed to have taken Tim under his wing as his personal responsibility, his ward to protect. What was much more wondrous, Tim seemed to have accepted his new position with grace and humility.

Bruce couldn't have asked for a better outcome, really. Tim clearly needed much better care, and Damian needed someone to care for. It was a perfect match.

The hand-holding was a little odd. But Bruce wasn't going to complain. Not even a little bit.

(End.)


End file.
